Air magics deal with natural conditions such as precipitation and cloud cover. It can be quite useful in that it can alter the battlefield itself, rather than the abilities of the combatants, evening the odds in an unfair fight by preventing the use or overwhelming odds or allowing escape from a hopeless battle. It is most practical when invoked over a small area, and can be dangerously powerful if used over wide areas.
It can also be used directly, to create and control drafts of wind and gusts of air, but is generally less precise and versatile than Movement.
Air Difficulty Numbers
The difficulty of effects affecting the environment depends on its nature. If you are high up on a mountain top, the difficulty is zero and the Outcome is doubled.
| Area | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Flat area on a windy day, free flight | O |
| Normal outdoors, large hall or windy room | 5 |
| General indoors | 10 |
| Claustrophobic; small Cave or closed room | 15 |
| Enclosed; buried or underwater | 20 |
A Backlash with Air magic reduces your Reflexes by one for the rest of the session.
Air Effects
Breakfall
You can safely break a fall as a defensive action. The target still falls, but takes no damage from landing. Doing this for yourself is a one-shot action, but if somebody else is involved, it requires three shots. Snap-shot and multi-target stunts are possible.
Elementalist
These effects are common to all the elements. The descriptions are generic, but apply only to the particular element(s) you know the schticks for.
Elemental Master
With Elemental Master, you can dominate creatures of your element and expect them to do your bidding, if they are not dead-set against you. You can communicate with the elementals and speak their language fluently. Use Sorcery instead of your Charisma for purposes of dealing with them. The elementals fear and respect you and will not attack you without provocation.
Elemental Summon
You can also summon (but not control) elementals. This costs two for Magic points (one if you make it a 15-minute ritual) and has a difficulty equal to the Powers of the elemental.
Sense Elementals
You can sense the presence of any creature of your element within a hundred meters times your Sorcery action value. You only know that they are present until you can see them, whereupon you can sense their health and general well being. Sensing an elemental in this fashion requires a Sorcery check against it's Willpower. This must be done subtly, or the target will sense your scrying.
Elemental Travel
You can travel to the elemental plane of your choice. Not all campaigns have elemental planes, or they may lack relevance to the story, in which case you shoild not expect this to work. But when it does work, you open a portal to the elemental plane and arrive in a spot corresponding to the place you left your own world from - depening on the cosmology of the plane.
Elemental Protection
You are protected against the harmful effects of your element. You can even survive on the corresponding elemental plane. Whenever you would take damage from elemental attacks, subtract your Magic from the damage dealt to you. This is not armor or Toughness, and cannot be bypassed as such. Elemental attacks include ElementalAura and Blast variants of your element - compare to DamageImmunity.
Gust of Wind
A directional blast of air. It can blow out torches, capsize small boats, blow away the dust and debris of ages and power a small ship. It is mainly used for distracting stunts in non-combat situations. To distract someone, make a Sorcery roll against your target's Dodge or Agility (with a minimum of the environmental difficulty). Each point of Outcome means he will be distracted for one minute while he gets his stuff in order. This will not prevent him from engaging in combat or from an immediate response to immediate problems, but will prevent any orderly work or task. An Outcome equal to his Perception means he has lost some vulnerable gear, such as torches, veils, skirts, maps or cloaks. Works great as a distraction on an army base, archeological dig or other organized camp.
Dust Devil
A weak whirlwind that stirs up dust, sand, dry leaves and other light debris. It is an area effect, with a diameter equal to the Outcome. Anyone in the area suffers one to three points of impairment, depending on how much the Dust Devil had to stir up; three points would be a desert, while one point is a clean-swept yard. Use the environmental difficulties noted above.
Manipulate Weather
You can change the weather in an area around you. This effect is mostly used to set the scene, but can make your enemies confused or force them to separate. Use standard environmental difficulties. Depending on the outcome and the GM's shim, this may affect a large or small area, but usually affects the entire set. It is possible to expand the weather effect to a very large area by expending Magic, points:
| Magic, Points | Radius | Example of area Covered |
|---|---|---|
| 100 m | Large building or site | |
| 1 | 1 km | Small city |
| 2 | 10 km | Large City |
| 3 | 100 km | Province |
| 4 | 1000 km | State or country |
| 5 | 10.000 km | Small continent |
| 6 | 1000.000 km | Large continent |
| 7 | 10.000.000 km | Earth |
Creating very unlikely weather, such as a snowstorm in the Sahara, is very hard and incurs a penalty of -5 or even more. The GM may also decide it derails the plot, thus failing automatically. For example, if the plot revolves around the rigors of dessert travel, no amount of sorcery will change the climate to cold temperate.
Manipulate weather lasts until dispersed normally. This takes at least a few minutes, but may last hours. Large-scale weather control lasts longer.
| Cold | Sends people inside in search of shelter. Forces opponents to don awkward and constraining heavy coats, scarves, and gloves. Causes guards to huddle together around heaters and garbage-can bonfires, abandoning their posts. (No, this isn't mind control: these are things that might naturally occur as a result of cold weather.) | |
|---|---|---|
| Fog | You can create a cloud of thick and concealing fog. The cloud has a diameter equal to your Sorcery Action Result. For those blinded, halve Move, and all Perception tests and ranged attacks suffer a penalty of one per meter in the fog. Seeing more than a meter through this fog is hard. The cloud lasts a number of Sequences equal to your Outcome. Use environmental difficulties. | |
| Heat and Humidity | Causes suffering to opponents wearing armor or heavy coats to conceal their portable arsenals. Accelerates rot and decay. | |
| Mist | You can create a cloud of vaporous mist or a thick and concealing fog. Provides concealment for you and your allies. Causes your enemies to be confused and separated. | |
| Rain | Mires enemy vehicles in mud. Clears the streets of pesky bystanders. Puts out any persistent fires. | |
| Snow | Snarls traffic. Causes flight cancellations. Obscures vision. Can cause sleet, making the ground treacherous to walk on. | |
| Thunder | Impresses mooks and other underlings. Obscures sounds. Causes animals to stampede in terror. | |
| Wind | Blows away light objects. Damages buildings, knocks down trees and power lines. Creates sandstorms, which obscure vision and demoralizes foes. |
Flight
You can fly like a bird at a Move equal to your Action Value. You are not a very agile flyer, basically moving in a straight line between two points each move. You must move at least half your Move each action, or stall. You can swoop. Taking off is a separate action which only allows a single move; after that you can take double moves (with a turn inbetween) or a move and an action as usual.
All movement effects must be started up as an action. As a part of this action, you can make a normal move, as defined by the effect. On later actions you can make either double or normal moves, just as you ordinarily can run or walk.
Calculating movement in three dimensions is somewhat different from normal. Downward movement if free. Movement upwards counts normal, but lateral and vertical movement is calculated separately and added together to figure effective distance. So if you move to a point five meters away and three meters up, you have effectively moved eight meters.
Gift of the Wind
You can allow others to use Flight for a scene by spending one Magic point for each such target. Each of them can then fly on his own, using your Sorcery or Move to calculate their speed.
Flying Carpet
You can bring others along by using a carpet or similar conveyance. A number of people equal to your Magic, attribute can use Flight along with you. They must all be within a diameter equal to your Magic, in meters. This costs an extra Magic, point.
Hover
As an alternative to flight you can fly slower and with greater control using Hover. This still costs a Magic point. You can move through the air at your usual Move rate. You are very agile in the air, and can stand still, move straight up or down, and otherwise move just as if you were walking. Very similiar to what you do with Movement.
Mist Form
For three Magic, points, you an assume mist form. In this form, you can fly at will using Flight and Hover as desired, and you can move through holes and small openings, though this last stunt takes time and is uncomfortable. You become very vulnerable to gusts of wind, but are otherwise almost immune to attacks. You normally suffer no more than a single Wound Point from any physical attack. Element-based attacks affect you normally.
If you wonder what the corresponding lesser variant of this power is (as exemplified in the other elemental Schticks), that is simply Flight.
Reverse Missiles
You can always Dodge ranged attacks using your Sorcery if you know the Air schtick. For a 3-shot defensive action point that provides a +3 bonus to Dodge, you can send any such weapons that fail to hit you back against the shooter. Treat the negative outcome of the attack as a positive Outcome of this counterattack.
Wind Wall
A churning mass of volatile air can be used to block ranged attacks, fliers and nastiness like gas and gouts of flame. You conjure a wall of churning air at the cost of a Magic, point. The wall can be formed as a cloud, plane or sphere. It can be transparent or semitransparent with mist, as you desire.
Use environmental difficulties to invoke the Wind Wall, it lasts a minute per point of Outcome. The wall has a length or diameter equal to your Magic, , and can curve or bend as you wish. Its height is equal to the Outcome.
Any attempt to jump, fly or make a physical ranged attack through the wall has a minimum difficulty equal to your Sorcery AV. Simply walking through the wall is hard; halve movement, and light objects will be flying about and flames will gutter as appropriate. ZenMarksmanship negates the attack penalty. Those failing to fly in the Wind Wall are tossed to the edge of the area, but not directly harmed.
Weather Prediction
A sorcerer can roughly predict the weather a number of days into the future equal to his Magic, attribute, and give very detailed predictions an equal number of hours in advance. These predictions will dramatically change if another sorcerer alters the upcoming weather.